Ivan Illich Quotes

Even If Nonpolluting Power Were Feasible And Abundant, The Use Of Energy On A Massive Scale Acts On Society Like A Drug That Is Physically Harmless But Psychically Enslaving. A Community Can Choose Between Methadone And "cold Turkey"-between Maintaining Its Addiction To Alien Energy And Kicking It In Painful Cramps-but No Society Can Have A Population That Is Hooked On Progressively Larger Numbers Of Energy Slaves And Whose Members Are Also Autonomously Active.

Latin America Can No Longer Tolerate Being A Haven For United States Liberals Who Cannot Make Their Point At Home, An Outlet For Apostles Too "apostolic" To Find Their Vocation As Competent Professionals Within Their Own Community. The Hardware Salesman Threatens To Dump Second-rate Imitations Of Parishes, Schools And Catechisms -- Out-moded Even In The United States -- All Around The Continent. The Traveling Escapist Threatens Further To Confuse A Foreign World With His Superficial Protests, Which Are Not Viable Even At Home.

I Was Recently Told, 'you're A Liar!' When I Said To Somebody I Walked Down The Spine Of The Andes. Every Spaniard In The Sixteenth, Seventeenth Century Did That. The Idea That Somebody Could Just Walk! He Can Jog Perhaps In The Morning, But He Can't Walk Anywhere! The World Has Become Inaccessible Because We Drive There.

I Intend To Discuss Some Perplexing Issues Which Are Raised Once We Embrace The Hypothesis That Society Can Be Deschooled; To Search For Criteria Which May Help Us Distinguish Institutions Which Merit Development Because They Support Learning In A Deschooled Milieu; And To Clarify Those Personal Goals Which Would Foster The Advent Of An Age Of Leisure (schole) As Opposed To An Economy Dominated By Service Industries.

I Believe That If Something Like A Political Life Is To Remain For Us In This World Of Technology, Then It Begins With Friendship. Therefore My Task Is To Cultivate Disciplined, Self-denying, Careful, Tasteful Friendships.

At The Moment Of Death I Hope To Be Surprised.

The Goals Of Development Are Always And Everywhere Stated In Terms Of Consumer Value Packages Standardized Around The North Atlantic-and Therefore Always And Everywhere Imply More Privileges For A Few... Underdevelopment Is The Result Of A State Of Mind Common To Both Socialist And Capitalist Countries. Present Development Goals Are Neither Desirable Nor Reasonable. Unfortunately Antiimperialism Is No Antidote.

Culture Makes Pain Tolerable By Interpreting It's Necessity; Only Pain Perceived As Curable Is Intolerable.

Exporting Church Employees To Latin America Masks A Universal And Unconscious Fear Of A New Church. North And South American Authorities, Differently Motivated But Equally Fearful, Become Accomplices In Maintaining A Clerical And Irrelevant Church. Sacralizing Employees And Property, This Church Becomes Progressively More Blind To The Possibilities Of Sacralizing Person And Community.

To Hell With The Future. It's A Man-eating Idol.

Current Nationalism Is Merely The Affirmation Of The Right Of Colonial Elites To Repeat Historyand Follow The Road Travelled By The Rich Toward The Universal Consumption Of Internationally Marketed Packages, A Road Which Can Ultimately Lead Only To Universal Pollution And Universal Frustration.

School Divides Life Into Two Segments, Which Are Increasingly Of Comparable Length. As Much As Anything Else, Schooling Implies Custodial Care For Persons Who Are Declared Undesirable Elsewhere By The Simple Fact That A School Has Been Built To Serve Them.